


love

by daisylincs



Series: Staticquake Advent [3]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Advent Event, F/M, Relationship Introspective, Relationship Study, Staticquake Advent, Theme: Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 21:29:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28588815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisylincs/pseuds/daisylincs
Summary: "Saving the girl Iloveand the world at the same time?Feels pretty right to me."
Relationships: Lincoln Campbell/Skye | Daisy Johnson
Series: Staticquake Advent [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2034538
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	love

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, well, my gosh - hello, 2021!! We are twelve days in, and I still cannot BELIEVE it's actually the new year. fsklfsgjdhkksdhs, just, WHAT, it's so insane!! 
> 
> So: as we were drawing to the close of 2020, I had all these grand plans of posting my first official fic of 2021 on the first of January, and then immediately following it up by this, that and the other... none of which happened, as you can probably tell, since it _is_ the twelfth now 😝 Really, though, I think we were all kind of stupid expecting that all the craziness of 2020 would magically disappear in 2021 - it's like when people ask you if you feel any different on your birthday because you're a year older than yesterday. And. Mate. No. I always still feel exactly the same - these things don't magically change overnight!! 
> 
> So honestly, me expecting 2021 to do that was... Exhibit A for dumbassery. And, of course, our dear friend Murphy and his sodding law decided to throw me a couple of nightmarish weeks in isolation, and a spectacular writing slump where I just had. no. inspiration. 
> 
> Eventually though, and due in no small part to my utterly AMAZING friends, I managed to find my fandom-fingers again. And honestly, going by that, this fic couldn't be more appropriate for my first of the year - because, guys, I _love_ you. So, so very much, and I am ever so delighted and honoured to be a part of this fandom. 💜

Growing up in a chilly, loveless-despite-this-apparently-being-a-house-of-God's-love orphanage, Skye had often wondered what love would feel like. She'd read every book the orphanage had on the subject, like most of the other orphans had, too - she thought it was something they all craved, a deep ache inside them that hadn't been filled since the day they had arrived at St Agnes. 

She used to listen to love songs, too, curled up under too-thin grey blankets with a pair of eighty-percent-broken headphones that she had salvaged from rich Mr Roberts' trash. 

And she had longed, longed with all her heart, to feel what that would be _like,_ to experience even a fraction of the intensity they were all writing and singing about. 

But she had no idea how to even _begin_ with feeling something like that, and even less of an idea about what it would actually be _like._

The books and songs didn't agree on much, except that it was one of the most intense emotions you'd ever experience.

They were all also pretty resolute that, if it was love, you'd _know._ There wouldn't be any question about it. 

Well, she could say with absolute certainty that she'd never felt that. 

Attraction? Sure. There had been plenty of that for Ward, and even for Miles, and, hell, _definitely_ for that petite, dark-haired and passionate Spanish lord's-daughter-turned-hacker, _Camila._

But Ward had turned out to be a traitor, Miles had been a cowardly, lying douchebag, and Camila had gone back to Spain after a few of the best weeks of Skye's life. And in more or less the same pattern, everyone else she had ever tried to date, disappeared too. 

But she hadn't felt… _that_ for any of them, anyway. It had never been this instant connection, this feeling that she couldn't live without them, that she couldn't imagine her life without any of their warm presences. 

Because the problem was, she _could._ She'd always done fine looking out for herself, after all. 

She expected it was just because none of them had been _right,_ really. 

She expected that she _would_ find the right person, eventually, right after she finished finding her family. (Or maybe during it, she wasn't quite sure about that.) 

But, regardless, she expected that she'd _know,_ one way or another, when she'd meet them. 

She had never expected that love would be the kind of thing that snuck up on you. 

//

Skye had never felt anything like this harrowing, squeezing panic in her chest as the words repeated in her head, _Hydra took Lincoln._

All she could see in her mind's eye were _tables,_ cold steel tables, and scalpels, and a chilling, practically-accentless voice speaking somewhere above her - _"discovery requires experimentation."_

All she could see were pictures of blood, and pain, and bodies cut up without a care for the _person_ inside, dumped in the ditch like yesterday's trash - 

_And no healing gift to patch him up again._

It didn't make any _sense,_ any of this - Whitehall was dead, and, besides, she had only known Lincoln for a few days. There was no _reason_ for her heart to be clenching this tightly in her chest, for the room to give little quivers in sync with her stuttering pulse. 

He hadn't given her any _reasons_ to be this concerned, either - he'd just made an insanely stupid popcorn joke, and showed off a few party tricks with his powers, and beat her ass repeatedly at backgammon, and came up with the _stupidest_ jokes that made her laugh no matter how hard she tried to suppress it, and had stupidly staticky hair, and generally been an _idiot._

He was such an _idiot,_ he really was, but the thought of anything happening to him, anything hurting him, sent a bolt of low, samurai-sharp fury straight through to her very core, accompanied by a surge of vicious protectiveness that shocked her in its intensity. 

_My idiot._

No, none of this made any sense - but she knew she'd tear down the entirety of Hydra to get him back, if she had to. 

(And she _could,_ now. That felt good.) 

_Good_ wasn't remotely the word she'd use to describe how she felt when she _did_ get into Hydra and saw him lying deathly still there, though. Not when the heartbeat monitors' flatlining _beeeeep_ filled the entire room, louder even than the pounding of her heart and the rush of blood in her ears. 

She ran to him, not even fully conscious of what she was doing, of the little _"no's"_ dropping from her lips. She couldn't lose him, she _wouldn't._

The thought gave her mind a surprising focus, and her eyes caught and held on the probes stuck to his chest - and, before she could second-guess herself, she held her hand out above them. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the way she always sensed him differently to everyone else, with an extra little staticky buzz to the hum of his molecules, and - 

_Zap._

The probes jumped to life, and for once _he_ was the one being shocked - but Skye wasn't in the right state of mind to appreciate the irony of it. She was far too absorbed in the rapid _beep-beep-beep_ of the heartbeat monitors starting up again, and the tiny flutter of vibrations she herself could feel with her hand just above his heart. 

The relief that shot through her was so powerful it nearly knocked her off her feet, and unable to do anything but go with the flow for the moment, she dropped her head onto his chest and let out a shaky breath as she continued to sense his pulse, faint but _there._

Then Jemma came in, and logic took over - Lincoln needed medical, and fast. She was raising the sides of the hospital bed and sending out a small quake to clear a path in front of it before her friend had even fully caught up, her brain narrowing down to a single-minded focus as she worked to achieve her goal, to get him to safety. 

One tiny, tiny part of her did think that it was _weird,_ ridiculous even, that she was going to such lengths, both physically and emotionally, over this rescue - but the rest of her was completely focused on Lincoln, barely even stirring from his side to eat once he was safely out of surgery. 

And quite naturally, that tiny part got blocked out. 

She could hear Fitz and Jemma whispering behind her, and she knew they wanted to talk to her. But the thing was, Fitzsimmons were _fine -_ not dating yet, it was true, but still fine. 

Lincoln, on the other hand, had nearly died, _and_ he would be waking up in a place he didn't know, with people he couldn't trust. The idea of leaving him on his own for longer than a few minutes didn't even… occur to her. She needed to be _there_ when he woke up, to make sure he knew everything was okay - and, maybe, to make sure for herself that _he_ was okay. 

And when he did wake up, lights flickering on and off as his powers surged awake too, she felt that gripping and all-consuming _relief_ again. 

She couldn't have kept the smile off her face if she had tried, and she felt herself go almost limp from the relief, limp but also… strangely buoyant, like every part of her was lighting up inside when he returned her smile, tentative and wry, but real. 

This feeling… she didn't have a clue what it was, or _why_ it was, or least of all why it was so strong. 

Right now, though, she wasn't going to try and figure it out - she thought she might just bask in it, and silently revel in his presence, even as she playfully teased him out loud. 

His smile widened at her stupid joke, and she felt the feeling _double,_ settling warm and soft somewhere deep inside her chest. 

She'd definitely have to figure out what it was someday - and, come on, she was sure there'd be some reasonable explanation. Jemma would probably be able to tell her exactly which pheromones had been set off by the adrenaline of the rescue, and… yeah, she'd figure it out. There were only so many things it could be, right? 

For all she thought, though, she never even _dreamed_ that it could be love. 

It was something, though. 

//

The orphanage hadn't been the best place to learn about love, at _all_ \- least of all about expressing love. There, the closest thing they had gotten to a gesture of love was the small mercy of meat in Sister Georgia's watery soup, or, if they were _really_ lucky, a scrap of cake to go after it. 

Hugging, kissing, even holding hands… none of those were done, or _permitted,_ at all. You could get sent to the chapel for standing too close to a fellow orphan, pretty much. 

It made them all crave the tender touch, she thought. It made them all want it more than anything else. 

But it also made them completely clueless on how to _receive_ it if they ever got it, and even _more_ hopeless at ever knowing how to express love themselves. 

It was a cold, cruel cycle of wanting something so badly that it brought tears to your eyes, but not knowing what to _do_ with it once you did get lucky enough to have it. 

In fact, Skye thought that she wouldn't even know how to _recognise_ a gesture of love. 

//

She and Lincoln had been through Hydra kidnappings, Inhuman uprisings, the ATCU and genocidal blue monsters together, and that wasn't even _starting_ on any of the emotional stuff - so Daisy thought that she was at least a _little_ justified for not noticing immediately. It was, after all, little things - subtle and small, and so _natural_ and _comfortable_ that she didn't think to stop and pick them out. 

Even before Lash and him joining SHIELD, in the days of her barging into his tiny apartment mostly uninvited and bothering him while he was studying, she had casually shrugged off her leather jacket and left it slung across his couch. 

It was a simple detail - ridiculous, really. 

But she never took off her leather jacket with anyone except her friends, her almost-family. 

Until Lincoln, of course. 

And that wasn't all. In his apartment, she'd had no problem with sprawling herself out on his couch, squashing at least half of his medical books. And, when he'd come over to groan about it and try (in vain) to straighten them, she would casually kick her feet onto his lap and blink disarmingly up at him. 

There were so many little touches, now that she thought about it - even back then, he'd brush her shoulder fondly when he let her in, despite his mostly-playful complaining when it was her at his door, _again._ Their hands would touch when he handed her a soda, and once or twice they'd even hug goodbye. 

Things had been good for a little while, _easy_ \- but then they got bad again, which, honestly, she totally should have expected. 

SHIELD found out about the fish-oil pills, Lash started killing Inhumans left right and centre, and Lincoln went into a spiral… but then she kissed him, and _that_ was something else. 

She hadn't even meant to do it, at first - it had just _happened,_ more of a plea for him to come back and stop freezing her out than anything else. She missed their ease, and comfort, and _caring,_ and she needed to tell him so, the only way she thought he might listen. 

And it took a while, but he heard her. 

He came to SHIELD, and slowly, tentatively, started to settle in. 

He stuck close to her for the first while, sometimes so close that their shoulders and hands would brush lightly in the corridors. 

Then it was the common rooms, too, and she could drop her feet in his lap again as she tried to teach him so he could be her Mario Kart partner against Mack and Fitz. She could poke his chest playfully again if he made a particularly dumb joke, and she could lean her head sleepily against his shoulder when team movie nights got late. 

They kissed again soon enough, and despite the blood on her face and the pounding still in her head, it was good. Really good. 

It stayed good, too, which both surprised and deeply pleased her. They'd meet in the kitchens for midnight hot chocolate (accidentally at first, but then it became a deliberate rendezvous that may or may not have involved making out against the fridge.) After, he'd give her this little _smile,_ bright with warmth and affection - and it was different to the smiles he'd shown her in Afterlife, less carefree, but somehow more… genuine. (It made something very soft and distinctly golden-warm spread through her from head to toes.) 

If she was working on a coding improvement for Coulson, or catching up on her paperwork, she'd glance up and see a cup of her favourite coffee waiting for her, complete with milk and sugar the way she liked it. Sometimes, if she was busy for really long, she'd find a stack of sandwiches. 

He made sure she got to bed on time, too - having the nerve to use his _powers_ to short out her room's electricity supply when she stayed up too late working extra, or occasionally binge-watching a show. 

(When she asked how he unerringly managed to sense when she was staying up too late, _every single time,_ he'd responded playfully that he could sense electric devices the same way she could sense the vibrations of people around her, and she'd _wanted_ to give him the room next to hers, hadn't she? 

She'd almost regretted that decision, then - almost. His impish grin and sparkling eyes made it just _slightly_ too hard for her to really regret anything, unfortunately.) 

That wasn't the only way he used his powers around her, either - he'd developed this habit of lightly shocking her in the middle of a briefing to see if he could get her into trouble, or, _worse,_ torturing her with tickly sparks. She was quite certain that May had never imagined all her poker-face training paying off in _this_ way, but, well, neither had she, and _here she was._

He always gave her the most innocent look when he did it, too - like it couldn't _possibly_ have been him, there was obviously a whole roomful of Inhumans with electrical powers around them! 

She got him back by sending little quakes his way when they were training, resulting in May and Bobbi, his impromptu sparring partners, thinking he was the clumsiest recruit who'd ever set foot in this gym. 

It was a game, and it was _fun -_ more fun than she'd thought such a thing could ever be. 

It was all just so _easy,_ with him. 

And, a little later, when sharing a room became a matter of course, he'd gotten her hooked on the feeling of waking up snuggled together, their limbs a tangled mess and their hair (but especially his, to her eternal amusement) even more so. 

She couldn't count all the places they touched in those first-rays-of-the-sun, oh-God-we've-got-to-get-up-for-t'ai-chi- _why_ moments - his arm around her waist, her head half-buried in the pillow and half in his shoulder, his nose pressed into the crook of her neck. 

They were both so bleary in those early mornings, but it was on exactly one of those mornings, when Lincoln, his eyes still half-closed, handed her her favourite training shirt without even really looking, that she _realised._

There were so many little things, little touches and exchanged smiles and teases and lunches left by her work, which on their _own_ were nothing more than tiny, sweet gestures, which she'd notice in the moment and quietly fawn over, but move on to the ever-pressing next concern soon enough. 

But when you added them all _together…_

Well, when she added them all together, they felt a little bit like love. 

//

Years and years spent in a place as dark and cold and loveless as St Agnes Orphanage could suck all the hope out of even the most positive person - and, the more time she spent there, the more Skye came to believe, with an awful, dull kind of certainty, that she would never find love. 

There was just no point in hoping for it, really - even when she eventually got out of the orphanage. Every relationship she ever tried, be it platonic or romantic, crashed and burned, no matter _what_ she did. 

Maybe she just wasn't _meant_ for love - so then why would she get her hopes up high, only for them to inevitably come crashing down? 

Because her life had proved, time and time again, that those hopes _would_ come crashing down, more and more painfully every time. 

So at some point, she had told herself - trained herself - to believe just it. _She would never find love._

So she had stopped expecting it entirely. 

//

May always told her that the enemy you don't expect is the one who shoots you where it hurts the most. She had been referring to Ward, obviously, and trying to condition Daisy so nothing like that would happen again. She'd mostly succeeded - but her words _did_ prove their truth once again, though in a much lighter way than May would ever have imagined. 

Because Daisy, in a time where she had absolutely not been expecting it, had fallen in love. 

It had taken her a _while_ to realise it, especially because, goddammit, this really _had_ snuck up on her. 

And it was exactly the opposite of what she had always thought love would be like! 

Not that she meant that as a _bad_ thing; quite the contrary, in fact. It was just… she had always thought - or, well, she had always _gathered,_ from the pieces and snippets she could patch together from great romances - that love was supposed to be this big, dramatic and completely life-changing thing. 

And the thing was, for her, it _wasn't_. 

Oh, it was life-changing, definitely - but in a _quiet_ way, in many small moments and gestures of affection that she barely noticed in the moment. It was only when she actually went and _thought_ about it that she realised just how much she would be missing if they were ever gone. 

So, no, love didn't have to be this immediate, giant and undeniable thing, this star-crossed drama for the whole world to see. 

Love could be something as simple as a sandwich, if it was left there because he _knew_ she'd be working overtime. Love could be a gentle brush of hands in the corridor when she knew he was feeling unsettled. Love could be waking up in the morning, and knowing before she even leant back to snuggle against his chest that he'd be _there._ Love could be playful competitions with their powers to see who could get who in trouble with May first. 

Okay, maybe that last one was pretty unique to them - but the point stood. Love didn't have to be huge and obvious at all; it could be something entirely subtle and soft, something that snuck in when you weren't expecting it, something you only really realised was there when it struck you one morning just how comfortable and precious it was. 

At the end of the day, it didn't _matter_ what or how it was _-_ all that mattered was that it was love, and that it was _there._

It had taken her a _long_ time to realise all of that, but now, curled up in _her and Lincoln's_ bed (not her bed, not anymore, it was _theirs_ now)with the rise and fall of his chest a gentle backdrop to the soft, relaxed patter of her heartbeat, and pale golden sunbeams dancing across the mussed covers… well, there was no doubt about it. 

So maybe neither of them had quite managed to say the words yet - but they both felt it; she knew that with the same unshakeable and simultaneously achingly tender certainty that she knew he'd be right there if she reached out to lace their fingers. 

It was love. Daisy knew it was love. 

She had found love. 

Despite it all, she had found _love_. 


End file.
